Collection: Art prints by Jean François Millet

Jean-François Millet was a French painter of the 19th century and is one of the central representatives of realism. He became known above all for his depictions of rural life, in which farmers and field workers take center stage. Millet was less interested in historical or mythological themes than in everyday work in the countryside, which he depicted with seriousness and dignity.

Millet was born in Gruchy in Normandy in 1814 and grew up as the son of a farming family. The experiences of his childhood had a lasting influence on his later work. His talent for drawing became apparent early on, which enabled him to study art. In the 1830s, he went to Paris, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. There he explored academic painting, but soon found himself unable to access its idealized pictorial themes and formal conventions.

After initial attempts at portrait and history painting, Millet increasingly turned to depicting peasant work. In the 1840s and 1850s, he created the works for which he is known today: scenes of sowing, harvesting or gathering ears of corn. Paintings such as The Harvesters or The Sower show simple activities, but without sentimental glorification. The figures appear heavy, calm and firmly connected to the soil they are working. Millet was less interested in individual portraits than in the general living conditions of the rural population.

In 1849, Millet settled in the village of Barbizon near the forest of Fontainebleau. There he joined a circle of artists who later became known as the Barbizon School. It was in this environment that he further developed his pictorial language: the landscape usually takes a back seat and serves as a simple, stable frame for the human work. Color and composition are restrained, the forms clear and comprehensible. Drama is not created through movement, but through the gravity and repetition of the work itself.

Millet's works were often received critically by his contemporaries. Some viewers saw a political statement in his paintings or found the depictions of the peasants too gloomy and unpleasant. In fact, however, Millet saw his art less as a social indictment than as an expression of respect for a way of life that he knew from his own experience. The hard everyday life of farm work does not appear heroic in his work, but neither is it caricatured - it is rather matter-of-fact and serious.

Jean-François Millet died in Barbizon in 1875. His influence on art history is nevertheless considerable. Later artists such as Vincent van Gogh explicitly referred to his works. Today, Millet is regarded as a painter who gave simple work and rural life a firm place in art. His paintings are characterized by clarity, tranquillity and human closeness, which is precisely why they are still easy to understand today.